


Thing With Feathers

by ifwegettherebysunset



Series: Quantum [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Avatars, Cyberpunk, Dragons, Gen, Mages, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:44:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwegettherebysunset/pseuds/ifwegettherebysunset
Summary: Martha tells the stories of finding each of them every year. Crow's is always painstakingly normal. In a world of enhancements and magic, he is the most human of the bunch.Well. He was.(the story of how Crow Hogan's wings find him)





	Thing With Feathers

Martha found Yusei first.

"Sparking like a live wire!" she cries, shaking her hands about, "I had to wait to pick you up!"

When his eyes stopped glowing, she made her move. He quieted almost instantly.

"You were a good baby." Yusei always blushes at that.

She found Jack a couple weeks later. " _In_ a bonfire! Right in the middle!"

He wasn't burning. Charcoal runes licked up his skin from head to toe. He was  _laughing_.

"Rambunctious from the start," Martha says, wagging her finger. Jack humphs.

Crow was last.

Martha had heard crying from the rubble that was just named Satellite. She spent hours digging around.

"Crying loud enough to wake the dead! I don't know how you survived!"

Other than that, nothing else. No sparks, no fire. Just a toddler sobbing for help.

* * *

At six years old, Yusei fixes every electronic in the house. All he has to do is touch it and "feel around," as he calls it, then boom, he knows the problem. Sometimes he can just correct it without asking for tools twice the size of his little hands.

Jack never lets anyone go cold. He spews arrogance, but in the end, one shiver from a kid is enough to share his undying heat. He taps the scrap kindle in the old-fashioned fireplace until it ignites.

Crow finds some Duel Monsters cards. Certainly that has a huge impact on everyone. They allow Martha to teach the kids letters and numbers, and brighten everyone's days with a new game. Though he doesn't know it now, he triggers his, Yusei's and Jack's futures.

He's a little jealous of the magic. Martha tells him his magic comes from his smile.

* * *

At twelve, Yusei implants curved metal in his skin.

They keep his fingers permanently curled and bleed like nothing else. Martha has a fit. Jack ends up having to cauterize the wounds, which melds the metal completely into Yusei's flesh.

But he says they help. Realizing his discipline as a technomage is overwhelming, even in Satellite. Everything is crying out to be fixed, improved, enhanced. He needs a conduit to help control the currents rushing through him.

None of them don't realize how desperate he is for outlets until Crow finds him digging power sockets into his arms.

It's the most he's ever seen Yusei cry.

"It won't stop," Yusei murmurs shakily, "I can't get it to stop."

He becomes a new power source. Every time someone plugs him in, he shudders in relief. The device is instantly at full charge.

Crow's the first one to make the connection. Moment's surge changed Yusei. Filled him with more electricity than any technomage has had in recent memory. He wonders if any others like Yusei are having this experience.

The scarring is thick and terrible. But Yusei breathes easier. Crow helps him through the rest of his recovery.

* * *

Jack likes to come home practically naked. Martha threatens to stop giving him clothes if he's just gonna burn them off. They're hard to come by, and the orphanage's resources are extremely limited.

Yusei asks Crow to help him find scrap. Wires, if they can swing it.

Crow watches in amazement as Yusei seals circuits into Jack's coat. It's to channel the fire out of the material. He tries explaining how he does it. Crow ends up laughing and telling him that's all lost on him.

All he knows is that it works, and Yusei gets a big hug from Martha.

* * *

Yusei and Jack leave the orphanage at fourteen. They know Martha needs less mouths to feed, and they know Satellite to the last pebble. Crow sticks around to help with the kids for a while, but he joins them soon enough.

Then they meet Kiryu.

Crow doesn't like to talk about that. The golden age, Yusei's first love, the marked map, the violent end. Only some of it's worth remembering around a barrel fire, though he never forgets a thing.

Crow finds his own band of children. He goes to prison three times stealing for them on a D-Wheel Yusei helped build. He's sixteen.

He doesn't hear anything from Jack until Blitz finds him and tells him what happened. Something's changed in Yusei, he adds. He's even quieter now, doesn't initiate touches.

Crow returns to his children. That's all he can do.

* * *

Seventeen and hardened, Yusei leaves for Neo Domino. According to Rally, he controls the entire trash chute for an extra minute after an officer chased him in. There's no way he would've made it otherwise.

Crow hopes he didn't zone after getting out. Yusei can get lost in the lights sometimes.

He wants to help. But he has no magic, no enhancements, no way of getting to the city. Just a D-Wheel, a deck, and a gaggle of kids.

* * *

He wakes one morning to find a card he's never seen before lying by his head. The kids honestly don't know where it came from.

Yusei's been gone for weeks, Jack years. He doesn't know anybody who'd be able to get past the kids and leave him a present without telling him.

Blackfeather Armed Wing. A Synchro monster.

That afternoon, he swipes some food for one of his sick kids. Calima the Haze waits by the tray.

On and on, until Crow finds himself with an entire deck with the Blackfeather name. He waits with increasing tension for the other shoe to drop.

It never comes.

Three days after finding the final card, Crow has a dream.

Every monster in the deck surrounds him. Far above, a shadow with a beak stares down with glowing red eyes.

"You have impressed me and mine," the dragon(?) intones in a guttural voice, "We will follow you."

Calima perches on his shoulder, trilling happily. Crow gapes at her. At all of them.

"But I don't have anything," he says, "I don't even have an enhancement."

Martha's voice echoes in the foggy expanse:  _"Your magic is in your smile."_

"We will give you our power," the dragon says, "In return, we ask that you harbor us as you harbor many."

Crow swallows. "What are you?"

The dragon dives.

He wakes gasping. His back is on fire.

His children rush to him, demanding what's wrong. Then the pain  _breaks_ , and they're shouting in amazement.

Crow looks behind him. Black wings, glistening with fluids, tremble from his back. His chest feels...full.

His deck hums warmly in his belt.

* * *

Benevolent fae are incredibly rare, but they tell him so without words. Sealed into cards until a worthy soul could grant them freedom to soar. They manifest through him.

He doesn't know how he can carry them.

He is encased in the faces of his friends and kids, all of whom he cared for. His heart is more than big enough.

He may or may not cry.

* * *

Blitz, Nerve, Taka, Rally, and some new guy named Saiga agree to take care of his kids, after some shock at his new wings. He jokes about how riding a D-Wheel's a little awkward now, so he's taken the back off. They love all the improvements.

The wind responds to him now. When he learns to fly, he clears all of Satellite in ten minutes. If he can time this right...

Crow walks up that old legend's bridge. He can't bring his D-Wheel yet. But it'll be enough.

_We will follow you._

The wind ruffles his feathers.

Time for a reunion.


End file.
